yoelknits

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

One of the knitting group ladies had a baby! In my knitting group, this does not happen terribly frequently. So after some plotting and planning, we had ourselves a citrus-themed knitted baby shower! I got a special skein of very citrusy yarn during an unblogged work trip to Boston. Newbury Yarns wouldn't let me take any pictures of the inside (weird), but here is a skein of their house-dyed DIPS sock yarn.

I originally got this for a baby sweater, then saw that too many compatriots were doing that, so I dug around for blanket patterns. Not many blanket patterns are in sock weight, especially with just 400 yards.

Since the last Citron was such fun and well-received, I decided that if I doubled the half-circle into a full-circle, and knitted in the round, this would be an all-knitted and easy-peasy blanket, and I'd just stop when I ran out of yarn.

Which is exactly what I did, after just 3 repeats! Actually I ran out of yarn to cast off, so then I used the remaining loops to do a crochet bind-off; since it was on the ruffly part with lots of stitches anyway, it didn't end up too tight (definitely NOT recommended for a regular shawl).

I wrote down the final dimensions but the house is still a mess after moving in. I hope this expectant mama picture gives a good sense of scale.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Wow, a long break! It has been very, very busy. Part of the busy-ness was incorporating this alley kitty, on the other side of the door, into our family.

Meet Penny! She has not yet learned to pose for the camera, but she is only a wee lassie, so I have high hopes.

Cammy, regal as always, is hissing a lot.

I hope they learn to get along. It's like hoping an 80-year-old virgin queen learns to get on with a 14-year-old streetwalker who keeps pouncing on her out of the blue. Much depends on the strategic doling-out of tuna and catnip.

The other busy-ness has been moving houses, in >100 degree weather. You know what a new house means... A knitting/craft room! It is a small alcove on the top floor, which is sure to get great light in the winter, but is unbearably hot right now. Just so you can see how sad and slope-y and junky it is right now:

The albatross grey couch that has been deemed not worthy of being in any other room will be living here now.

I'll be back with 2 small FO's (like I said, it has been insanely hot) and more regular updates from now on!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

It's knitted top-down, with a flouncy skirt made from frequent increases. By the time you start noticing the increases and the huge number of stitches, the dress is nearly finished, and so cute, that you have to finish it.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Traveling northwards, there are a lot fewer people, and a lot more sheep.

Heather

The landscape becomes more waterscape

Finally, from the top of the mainland, a ferry to the Orkney Islands.

Orkney houses what is apparently the highest per-capita concentration of artists and artisans. Knitting and fiberarts are no exception. So you can just be wandering around and see this in the window of a hardware store.

I didn't keep very good notes for all of the knitting and yarn stores I went to, so here are the three I could sort out from a combination of photos and receipts.

R A Finn, at 12 Victoria Street (despite what the address marker says) in Kirkwall, is a half-yarn, half-cosmetics, half-gifts sort of store.

There are amazing handknitted colorwork garments for sale. It's hard to imagine someone could finish a sweater like this, let alone however many are for sale here.

The yarn comes from North Ronaldsay (an Orkney island), from sheep of the same breed. Here's a shelf filled to the gills.

North Ronaldsay sheep have evolved to eat seaweed instead of grass! So their wool and meat have a certain je ne sais quoi -- one of the other ladies in my knitting group said the wool smelled like the sea.

Sheepy goodness

In Stromness, the flagship for Quernstone is at the center of town. This is a national brand that sells not only yarn, but also knitwear.

A lot of knitwear.

More delicious knitwear, colorwork, yarns. It's kind of overwhelming.

Time for a break from the yarn-drunkeness! We took a tour of the island, including some neolithic sites, like the Standing Stones of Stenness. There are quite a few pre-historic sites and stones, and most are just part of regular farmland. These sheep have grazing rights among the Standing Stones (but taking a break to ruminate here).

There are miles and miles of these low stone walls in Scotland, built with parallel flat stones. The stones got flatter the higher north we went, and then in Orkney, the walls are topped with perpendiular stones.

Compare these walls to the walls of the neolithic houses built into the hillside
at Skara Brae, about 5000 years ago.

Back to the yarn crawl. Simply Wool, also in Kirkwall, is quite new that they didn't have business cards or a website (at the time).

In contrast to the other knitting stores in Orkney that focus more on finished products, Simply Wool sells, well, mostly wool.

The other wall, plus large shelves in the center of the store, are stuffed to the gills with yarn. The yarn is mostly commercial brands, with only a small amount of local yarn/roving. I think if I lived here, this would end up being the go-to LYS -- for high-volume knitters (who aren't selling tourist goods), it is way too expensive and limiting to knit with the handdyed local yarn.

Since my luggage space was so limited, and most of these yarns are available in the US, I ended up not getting any yarn at all, but a pattern book. The pictures are in one book, and the patterns are in another booklet which is behind the counter. Very clever!

If you can believe it, total Scotland yarn purchases were 3 balls/skeins! There was just too much on-the-go traveling by public transportation to carry around a ton of souvenirs/yarn. We made our way back down southwards, spending 1-2 nights in each place.

The cows say helloooooo.

All in all, two thumbs up for Scotland! The views are spectacular, the whisky is tasty, and the knitting is worth retiring here!

The best street in Scotland, and possibly the whole universe, has to be Victoria Street, near Edinburgh Castle.

It's a gorgeous winding little lane lined with lovely old buildings on either side, and just hilly enough that you feel virtuous after walking up the street. In addition to two tweed clothing shops, and a cheese shop (of which I shockingly took no pictures!! but did get 2 lbs of cheese.), there is a

K1 Yarns is a light and airy boutique LYS, selling lots of local yarn. They have their own brand of yarn, named Scappa (it's the stuff in the bigger lime green shelving).

Since Scappa is from Orkney Islands, where I was about to head to, I decided to get something from some other Scottish island.

Some subtly variegated (but non-clown-barfy) tweedy fingering weight from the Isle of Harris, part of the Hebrides. It might be a touch itchy for socks, and I'm thinking it would make a really cozy cabled book cover, or a lined shawl.

The weather was so freakishly nice, that the person ahead of us in line was actually from Edinburgh, visiting the castle for the first time to enjoy the sunshine.

Another gato guard! The (human) guards switch out every hour in front of this war memorial. This one was so, ridiculously, supermodel handsome. I bet he could repel weapons with his face, zoolander-like.

Stirling

We skipped Stirling Castle to visit this absolutely stunning cemetery in Stirling (in search of DH's relatives). Fortunate are the souls buried here!